


The Pivot

by salable_mystic



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Book: The Vor Game, Gen, Komarr, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, no-one actually dies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-19
Updated: 2014-12-19
Packaged: 2018-03-02 06:29:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2802848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/salable_mystic/pseuds/salable_mystic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gregor Vorbarra is 26 when he decides that jumping off a balcony is how he will best serve Barrayar.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Pivot

**Author's Note:**

  * For [schneefink](https://archiveofourown.org/users/schneefink/gifts).



> Dear Schneefink, you asked for Gregor and Aral in the time span from before "The Warrior's Apprentice" to after "The Vor Game," and so here is where that idea led me - I think that there is so much brewing below both their surfaces (but especially Gregor's) that we never get to see, and so I tried to spin my own version of what some of that might be, while also spinning a line from "The Warrior's Apprentice" to "The Vor Game." I hope you enjoy it, and happy Yuletide to you!

There are men better suited to being Emperor than Gregor is, or ever could be. This is something he knows, down to the marrow of his bones. Men that are smarter, braver, stronger, fiercer, surer of themselves, of their place in the universe, better suited to maintaining the illusion that the Imperium (according to his Betan foster mother, at least) really is. Because, for them, it _isn’t_ an illusion, and they don’t feel like an awkward pretender whenever they have to open their mouth and decide something.  
  
Gregor - Gregor is nothing but an elaborate illusion, a puppet, a doll, a marionette – an empty man, bleak, hollow, devoid of both content and freedom, existing only to fulfill other people’s needs, not permitted to do anything that would, truly, serve Barrayar in any fundamental way.  
  
Gregor’s military career is one big joke, a two-year stint at collective play-acting, of grey-bearded, grave and serious men teaching their precious imperial china doll some of the norms, customs, and regulations of the service, while yet keeping him wrapped in cotton, safely away from any danger, lest he contract so much as even a scratch. And yet he is permitted – required! – to wear the imperial service uniform, and his chest is full of awards and commendations that come to him solely due to an accident of birth, not because he earned them – he did not even lift a finger to get them. No, there is some law somewhere that says that all Emperors are to wear these, and so Gregor does. He detests them. He detests the uniform, with its shiny awards, its straight lines, its stiff collar, its lies. Gregor does not know if he would have chosen to serve in the imperial fleet, had he been allowed to choose, but he is sure that if he _had_ chosen it, if he had _earned_ the commendations on his chest, then he would be feeling entirely different about them. But Gregor does not get to choose anything, not when it counts, and so he can only imagine.  
  
He is surrounded by men who have earned the commendations that sparkle on their uniforms. Men that sweated for them, bled for them, almost died for them. He is surrounded by the ghosts of men who _did_ die for them. Died for him. For the puppet, the marionette, the hollow man, for the man who has no voice of his own, and yet whose voice is enough to order all of Barrayar’s best and bravest to their death.  
  
But no, that is The Emperor’s voice, not Gregor’s. Gregor’s voice is screaming and screaming and screaming, while he is drowning and drowning and drowning, drowning beneath the waves of brave men that he has killed or almost killed, while the Emperor is cool and collected and making small talk, getting drunk on expensive champagne and elegantly nibbling on fancy hors d’oeuvres.  
  
Gregor is reeling from the shock of sudden knowledge, suffocating, asphyxiating beneath the heritage of the deeds committed by his grandfather and his father, not trusting his genes or his conscience or his self. Barrayar knows about mad Emperor Juri; does _not_ know about equally mad Crown Prince Serg, whose cunning and coldness and blood-lust and madness and perversity must surely be alive in Gregor’s genes, biding their time until they can reveal their true horror. But Gregor knows. He has always wondered, speculated, second guessed, suspected. And now he _knows_.  
  
Gregor, whose legacy this is, whose genes these are, can enumerate the men he has wronged; the dead, and the living. The living are worse, somehow. The dead he only sees in his dreams, at night, and sometimes in his sleepless hours; the living he encounters during the day, in meetings, conferences, in the hallway, over dinner. They are always there. Gregor is glad for that, because it means that he didn’t – that he _hasn’t_ , yet, killed them. And yet they are a constant reminder of his failures, his imperfections, the accident of birth that made him Emperor. He’s come so very, so very close to having ordered their death. The best and brightest Barrayar has to offer, the people he is closest to, whom he thought he could always trust. Whom he now knows that he _can_ , in fact, always trust. Who still seem to trust him, despite everything.  
  
He keeps searching for hints of doubt in their eyes, for hesitations when they are addressing him, for the suddenly hushed conversations when he enters a room, for the truth about Serg that they kept from him, for their certainty that it is only a matter of time until he, too, will need to be sent off on a mission that will turn into the most elaborate of funeral pyres, for the good of Barrayar ... and there is nothing. Nothing! Somehow, the fact that Gregor is the only one who carries the heavy stone of his own fallibility around his neck makes it worse, not better. Somehow, he thinks, if he could only see them distrusting him, he’d have something to work with, work towards, work against, to strife for, to prevent – something to do besides being their hollow Emperor.  
  
The storm of Gregor’s foolishness, that disastrous winter when he almost killed or destroyed all those he loves best, for them, seems to have blown over. Aral’s anger was like thunder, low and rolling in, dangerous yet contained, building and building and building, until, in a strange reverse of a real thunderstorm, Cordelia’s lightning-strike of Betan bluntness brought everything out in the open and the charged emotions discharged themselves in a long, passionate, but ultimately cleansing confrontation. Gregor still lives in the eye of that storm, holding himself entirely still, lest he start the wind’s fury again. There is no telling whom it might go for next. And so The Emperor performs his gracious, well-coordinated, delicate marionette dance, and Gregor remains frozen.  
  
There were hesitations, pauses, blanks in their conversations after Vordrozda – how could there not have been? But they faded. They understood that Gregor was sorry. And Gregor was – is – sorry. So, so, so, sorry. He tried so hard to be the perfect Emperor for them, after, to make up for it. To be thoughtful and wise and sharp and smart and sensible and astute and shrewd and decisive and open to advice and different, different, _different_ from what his genes, his destiny, will make him ... Gregor drowns beneath the requirements that he has set himself, beneath the knowledge that he has gained. Drowns, drowns, drowns, is drowning. The Emperor is dancing with some local lady whose name he made sure to remember, but which Gregor is not interested in contemplating.  
  
Gregor is contemplating the names of the people who are smarter than he is, both among the Imperium’s enemies, but also and especially among the people who are loyal to the Imperium, to the idea of the Imperium, to what the Imperium _should_ be, who see the Emperor as the culmination, as the confluence, as the fulcrum, as the pivot of all that is good and brave and shining about Barrayar. Gregor knows who they are. They are the people who raised him, who advise him, who served as his Regent, who serve as his Prime Minister, who manage Mercenary Fleets, who beat him at stratego when he was growing up, who carried Vidal Vordarian’s head around in a shopping bag. And Gregor know’s Barrayaran law – the Emperor needed to know it by heart, so people made very sure that Gregor was well educated in it – and he especially knows the laws of succession.  
  
Yes, Gregor knows who is next in line for Barrayar’s throne, should he no longer exist. It’s the men who are braver and smarter and fiercer and bolder and better and worthier than him.  
  
Gregor is a hollow man, a puppet, a marionette, a figure head. Gregor is no-one, and certainly not the person who is good and smart and brave and sane enough to stand as Barrayar’s confluence. Gregor has learned this. Once, foolishly, he thought that he might be, that he could wield that awesome power, shoulder that crushing weight, balance the unbalanceable. He failed. It almost cost him the three people he loves most - to death, or to bitterness, grief, estrangement. But - Gregor has learned from this. He now knows that he can never be what he, what they, what Barrayar needs. But he now also knows who _can_ be, who _can_ shoulder the burden, wield the power, manage the impossible feat. He has always known. So now, he decides, what is left to be done is simply to act on that knowledge, to perform the one service for the Imperium, for Barrayar, for _them_ , that it is in his power to achieve.  
  
The Emperor bows to the lady, excuses himself, steps out onto the balcony. Gregor has carefully studied the patterns the security men walk, so he knows that he has a ten minute window to do what is best for Barrayar, for them, for everyone.  
  
  
The Emperor approaches the balcony railing;  
  
The Hollow Man takes a last, deep breath;  
  
Gregor jumps, and falling, is finally, finally free.

 

+*+*+*+*+*+*+ 

 

Prime Minister Aral Vorkosigan is pulled out of a vid conference about agricultural reform by a harried looking Simon Illyan, to the news that the Emperor has vanished from the reception on Komarr, and that ImpSec suspect either a kidnapping (which would be bad enough, all on its own), or (worse, so much worse), an assassination. There are a thousand political details that will need to be worked out in the coming minutes, hours, and days, all contingent on which way the chips fall, and thoughts about the Imperium, Barrayaran politics, and what can and ought to be done if the Emperor is either being held hostage or already dead will soon fill the Prime Minister’s mind completely.  
  
But, in that one second, before the well-honed politician and strategist and military man kicks into action, Aral Vorkosigan is simply a parent, and so he thinks, "Gregor, oh, _Gregor_!"


End file.
